June 18, 2024
NEW YORK (AP) — Pro-Palestinian protesters vandalized locations associated with the Brooklyn Museum and the United Nations in New York City, throwing red paint across their entrances.
Mayor Eric Adams posted on the social platform X on Wednesday that police are investigating after the homes of museum director Anne Pasternak and members of the museum’s board of trustees were hit.
He shared four images of a brick building splashed with red paint with a banner hung in front of the door that read: “Anne Pasternak Brooklyn Museum White Supremacist Zionist.”
“This is not peaceful protest or free speech. This is a crime, and it’s overt, unacceptable antisemitism,” Adams wrote, sending sympathy to Pasternak and museum board members. “These actions will never be tolerated in New York City for any reason.”
Taylor Maatman, a spokesperson for the museum, declined to provide more details but noted a report was filed with police.
"We are deeply troubled by these horrible acts of vandalism targeting museum leadership," she said in an emailed statement.
Red paint was also splashed across the front of buildings associated with the German consulate, as well as the Permanent Observer Mission of the State of Palestine to the United Nations, where flyers critical of the Palestinian Authority and its president, Mahmoud Abbas, were also scattered outside the building.
A spokesperson for the New York Police Department declined to comment, saying the agency is investigating and will provide more information later. Messages seeking comment were also sent Wednesday to Palestinian and German diplomats.
Hundreds of protesters marched on the Brooklyn Museum late last month, setting up tents in the lobby and unfurling a “Free Palestine” banner from the building’s roof before police moved in to make dozens of arrests.
City Comptroller Brad Lander, who was among the New York politicians to speak out against the protests, said the Brooklyn Museum has done more to grapple with questions of “power, colonialism, racism & the role of art” than many other museums.
“The cowards who did this are way over the line into antisemitism, harming the cause they claim to care about, and making everyone less safe,” he wrote on X.
The grand Beaux Arts museum, which is the city’s second largest, sits at the edge of Crown Heights, home to one of the city’s largest communities of Orthodox Jews.
